The R/Renaissance(S), Humanists and Classics by Jerome Moran
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The R/renaissance(s), Humanists And Classics by Jerome Moran huius enim scientiae cura et disciplina ex teacher was known in Italian in the ‘Renaissance’ is a French word for an universis animantibus uni homini data Renaissance as a umanista (hence originally Italian phenomenon. It may est idcircoque humanitas appellata est. ‘Humanist’). The Humanists were have been used in the sense of a historical extremely important educational, and cultural epoch for the first time by (For the attention to this knowledge literary and cultural figures, and they Jules Michelet in 1855 (though he applied and training in it has been given to a were prime movers of the Renaissance. it to a period of French history, not human alone out of all living beings Humanism was a defining feature of Italian). B L Ullman, Italian Studies in the and on that account it has been the movement. I shall return to Renaissance (1973) pp. 24 onwards, called humanitas) Humanism and the Humanists later. discusses the history of the words used to What is less well known is that in describe the phenomenon. He says that Gellius, Noctes Atticae 13.17 [my clumsy the Middle Ages there had already been ‘no single word found general acceptance formatting, of course, and plodding two movements and periods in the West … to describe the phenomenon’ and that translation] each of which it is now customary to ‘The idea of rebirth came into use very First, where does the Renaissance fit call a Renaissance (or renaissance). slowly’. The Latin word for rebirth renasci in chronologically with other periods of These were the period 750 to 900, is used by Nicolas de Clamanges soon the past? There is general agreement that known as the ‘Carolingian Renaissance’ after Petrarch’s death in 1374. From 1518 the Renaissance should be dated from after Charlemagne (Carolus Magnus), Melanchthon uses litterae renascentes 1300 to 1650, though some believe that a and the period 1050 to 1200 (‘the long frequently, and others used litterae renatae. more accurate and meaningful starting twelfth century’), the age of the early/ The metaphor of rebirth caught on more date would be 1400/1450. The Middle first Humanists, known as the ‘Twelfth widely with Vasari’s use of the Italian Ages is generally taken to be the period Century Renaissance’. Some refer to word rinascita for the fine arts in 1550, 500 to 1500 (a considerable overlap with each of these two periods as a ‘mini- some 250 years after the beginnings of the Renaissance then), though some Renaissance’ (hence the lower case ‘r’ the Renaissance, and about 100 years would date the start to the Arab conquests above). As many as five Byzantine (mini) before its end. beginning about 640. A period of the renaissances have been identified, two The idea of a rebirth suggests future Middle Ages is traditionally known as the of them (800–1000 and 1260–1453) growth and development, to maturity and ‘Dark Age(s)’. Those who believe that the more important than the other three. beyond. And can one read anything into term is still appropriate (many reject it (This sounds impressive until you realise the choice of tenses used for the Latin because of its negative connotations) date that if it is true then there must have verb? The present tense (still being used this from 500/600 to 800, though some been five slumps or periods of decline in 1518) suggests something that has not extend it to 1000. (See later for the origins too. The Byzantine Empire did in fact even been born but is in the process of of the terms ‘Renaissance’, ‘Middle Ages’ have a very chequered history.) And of being born. The past tense gives no and ‘Dark Age(s)’.) course Byzantine learning and culture, indication of the stage of growth or Every Classics teacher knows how and the conservation of literary texts development reached. The metaphor of a important the Renaissance and the from classical antiquity (though many living thing is suggestive in itself. The Renaissance Humanists were for the failed to be conserved), had a great Renaissance is not seen as a thing that has history and development of their influence on the Renaissance in the been created, whole and complete. subject. In fact, what we call a Classics West, both before and after 1453. Instead it is still to emerge or still to reach The Journal of Classics Teaching 19 (38) p.96-98 © The Classical Association 2018. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of Downloaded96 from https://www.cambridge.org/corethe Creative Commons Attribution. IP address: licence 170.106.33.14 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/),, on 02 Oct 2021 at 12:05:39, subject to the Cambridge which permits Core terms unrestricted of use, available re-use, at distribution, and https://www.cambridge.org/core/termsreproduction in .any https://doi.org/10.1017/S2058631018000259 medium, provided the original work is properly cited its consummation. Either way it is a work achievements, some of which influenced innovation in other areas too) is almost in progress. the culture of the Renaissance. If there synonymous with the development of The words renaissance (French), was a ‘Dark Ages’ it was 500/600–800 Humanism. As far as we can tell, the word renasci, renascentes, renatae (Latin) and and due to the upheaval caused by the ‘humanism’, in its German form rinascita (Italian) all mean ‘rebirth’ and collapse of the Roman Empire. The new humanismus, was first used in 1808 by the denote the supposed rebirth of classical conditions were generally not favourable German educationist F I Niethammer. He antiquity. ‘Rebirth’ is a metaphor, of to cultural, i.e. ‘high culture’, activity.1 And used it (a translation of the Latin word course, and not altogether an apt one of course, as we have seen, the Middle humanitas) to mean a Classical education, when applied to classical antiquity, in spite Ages contained two renaissances. It has as his source Gellius had: see below). As I of what was said above, since the same even been said that every century from 800 have said, a person who was in effect a thing (as opposed to the same kind of onwards (five centuries from the end of teacher of Classics (a Renaissance thing, here a culture) cannot be born the Dark Ages to the start of the Humanist) was known in Italian as a twice — and is a culture something that is Renaissance) could lay claim to have been umanista. Clearly there was once a born, even once? If one is to stick with the a renaissance. Classical antiquity and the connection, still being made in the 19th metaphor, it is better to think of the birth Renaissance did not have a monopoly of Century, between Classics and and rebirth of culture rather than of the cultural activity and achievement, as the Humanism, as the latter was then culture of classical antiquity. The birth of historian Charles Haskins insisted, one of understood. Nobody today would make the Renaissance is not the rebirth of a the first to draw attention to the such a connection: we don’t think of previous culture but rather of culture achievements of the period 1050–1200 Classics when we think of Humanism. again after the culture-free Middle Ages in his provocatively titled book The But maybe some people in Scotland still (as Petrarch saw it). Of course the idea Renaissance Of The Twelfth Century. do, where Latin is/was known as that classical antiquity was the birth of 1300 conventionally marks the start ‘Humanity’; and an Oxford Classics culture, i.e. ‘high culture’, is questionable, of the period of Latin known as ‘Neo- course is known as Literae Humaniores. however attractive it may appear, Latin’, a return to the use of a form of And Classics of course in some places is especially to us Classicists, possibly with Classical Latin as against contemporary now just one, no longer the whole of, what Eurocentric myopia. Petrarch, learned Medieval Latin (both of them varieties of is termed the ‘Humanities’. though he was, knew little enough of standard Latin, of course).2 This can be All these terms have their origin in classical antiquity as a whole, and even seen as a linguistic renaissance of a piece the Classical world, specifically in second less of cultures before it — or after it. with the main cultural Renaissance and century CE Latin. Aulus Gellius at Noctes The Renaissance then was the inspired by the same motives. A return to Atticae 13.17 introduces the term ‘rebirth’ of culture or the ‘birth’ of a new ‘proper’ Classical Latin was regarded by humanitas. He quickly makes a connection culture (chiefly art, literature, learning), the Humanists in particular as central to between this and education by equating it beginning in Italy in the 14th Century and the Renaissance movement, though there with the Greek word paideia, which he says still within the period of the Middle Ages was some disagreement among them on is the equivalent of the Roman eruditionem (the idea of the ‘Middle’ Ages is owed to just how far the return should go. institutionemque in bonas artes (‘learning and Petrarch (1304–1374) : see below). The Contemporary Medieval Latin was for training in the good [i.e. liberal] arts’). He birth of culture was thought from them tainted with the same degeneracy as maintains that this was the meaning it had Petrarch onwards to have been in classical the Middle Ages generally, a time of for earlier writers, in particular Varro and antiquity.